I feel proud whenever I make another step in the right direction.

The medal isn't the achievement, and every runner knows it. The achievement was January — the dark mornings nobody photographed, back when the whole thing was still hypothetical and quitting would have cost nothing.

Pride tends to get saved up for finishes, which means it almost never gets spent, because most of a life is middle. Ask a very long stretch of effort to run on nothing and eventually it stops.

Let the step count. Not as a consolation prize — as the actual event. There was one this week. Give it its due before it disappears into the general blur.